pink-handed

English

Adjective

pink-handed (comparative more pink-handed, superlative most pink-handed)

1. White-collar; working at a desk job as opposed to manual labor.
   • 1973, Ralph Hurne, The Yellow Jersey, →ISBN, page 202:

     I know the pink-handed types who get jobs like this interviewer's got, and I know what he's trying to do to me.

   • 1994, Robert Murray Davis, Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western, →ISBN, page 100:

     The Western conceit is important because it allows Hernhuter to contrast the flat and tame backyard to the precipitous canyon and the colorful dialect of Nest with the bland generalizations of the pink-handed psychiatrist.

   • 2011, Keith Heyer Meldahl, Rough-Hewn Land: A Geologic Journey from California to the Rocky Mountains, →ISBN, page 32:

     Lode mine investors were often distant financiers: soft, pink-handed men who earned their livings with pens, not hammers.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pink,‎ handed.: having hands that are pink.
   • 1913, F. St. Mars, The Prowlers, page 102:

     Squat and gnome-like it looked, silhouetted against the dying fire in the western sky; an odd, elfin-eared, pink-handed, hunchbacked manikin with a tail.

   • 1963, Catherine Gaskin, Richard Bach, Ernest Kellogg Gann, Reader's digest condensed books: volume 4:

     He was pink-cheeked, pink-handed and pink-nosed, all of which combined with his delft-blue eyes to make him look like a mature kewpie.

   • 2014, R. V. Cassill, Doctor Cobb's Game: A Novel, →ISBN:

     Pink-faced and pink-handed, Peter leaned over his wife's legs. He reached both hands to her waist and pulled away the lilac-colored garment.

Adverb

pink-handed (comparative more pink-handed, superlative most pink-handed)

1. With clear evidence of guilt, red-handed.
   • 2000 December 25, Ed Foster, “Stats show backbone provider UUNet seems to be biggest spam haven”, in InfoWorld, volume 22, numbers 52-1, page 51:

     Several major ISPs have been caught red-handed (or perhaps pink-handed) making agreements with known spammers.

   • 2011, Keith Mansfield, Battle for Earth: Johnny Mackintosh 2, →ISBN:

     'Hence you closed it as soon as I entered and are exhibiting facial capillary dilation and blush response, consistent with what I suspect matches the human phrase “caught red- or rather pink-handed”.'

   • 2011, David Clewell, Taken Somehow By Surprise, →ISBN, page 18:

     My friend insists her purple house is where she caught a poacher in her yard, pink-handed, in floodlights she installed after she learned new birds of Featherstone would flock no more.

   • 2015, Lance Rubin, Denton Little's Deathdate, →ISBN:

     I remember that image so clearly, how my first thought was that it looked like a tiny above ground pool and a small squadron of pink men lying on their backs, tanning. “I was caught red-handed. Well . . . pink-handed.

Usage notes

• When used as a synonym for red-handed, this term is almost always used with the verb to catch, and is typically used for more minor offenses, those that are mostly embarrassing to the offender rather than being heinous crimes.